Semiconductor devices with various functions may be embedded in the same integrated circuit (IC). The semiconductor devices for example include non-volatile memory (NVM), complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), and capacitor. The fabricating processes for the different semiconductor devices need to be designed and integrated. Upon the integration, the fabricating processes are able to have the different devices all together such as memory device like dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random access memory (SRAM), magnetic RAM, or non-volatile memory, and logic circuit like p-type metal oxide semiconductor (PMOS), n-type metal oxide semiconductor (NMOS), and COMS. The semiconductor devices with different material also need to be considered in the integration of the fabricating process.
Flash NVM is commonly embedded in a system on chip (SOC) integrated circuits having CMOS logic circuit. The integration of the split-gate thin film flash memory with polysilicon gate electrode and the COMS logic circuit having high-k dielectric and metal gate on the same integrated circuit may require many additional process steps. The traditional integration process having memory device without high-k dielectric and logic device with high-k metal gate (HKMG) structure starts from forming the memory device, than depositing high-k dielectric and forming the logic device. Such process may have high-k dielectric residue, and thus requires additional masks to solve the problem which however results in contamination problems.